About

The Zebra With Rainbow Stripes and Meds, Mugs & Musings

Since November 2018, The Zebra With Rainbow Stripes has been written as a personal blog giving an insight into Tiegan Elise’s life with multiple complex chronic illnesses, blindness, mental health illnesses, and more - including the aspects of her life that aren’t disability related - obviously though, they will often weave in with her disabilities as the latter effects her every moment.

Tiegan can often be found writing, crafting, reading, watching her favourite shows, spending quality time with her family, spending time with her pet tortoise Teddy Crwban (which is the Welsh word for “tortoise”), or on FaceTime with her very adorable niece little Alora (or watching cute videos of her such as her sweet laugh - again and again), and her writing reflects this.

She likes to write posts somewhat unrelated to her illnesses, as well as those directly related to them, as she thinks both are important to share and sometimes struggles to write about her illnesses - because it can be mentally exhausting sometimes, and she also believes that showing that her life isn’t solely defined by her illnesses, and disabilities.

Although her illnesses impact every part of her life and make each day hard, she is keen to reflect on the positives and silver linings which life holds despite them, and live as much as she possibly can despite so many barriers - including her illnesses - which commonly render even numerous “every day” activities impossible, sharing that a life with chronic illnesses and everything is still worthy and holds positives too - whilst giving unglamorised realistic insights into what her life is like as a chronically ill, disabled teenager with mental illnesses every step of the way.

Most of what she posts aren’t written to post, but as her therapy which allows the thoughts and feelings have an effective outlet that takes far, far less energy than for the thoughts and feelings to continue to swarm around in her brain, and she is hopeful that this only enhances their authenticity.

Tiegan Elise has always found writing a form of positive therapy; even to write a single word has often proved to be beneficial to her during her life. And so, she writes - fore-mostly - for herself, and then a fraction gets uploaded to “The Zebra With Rainbow Stripes” in the hope of that helping others - and to reach out with the realities in her life and of her illnesses. Commonly, she can be seen writing whilst in bed, or curled on a sofa somewhere.

She has found herself being a keen advocate - possibly as she has had to advocate for herself alongside her supporting family from a very young age - and finds herself writing advocating posts in a fairly regular way, which she hopes that will go some way in helping, as it does for her by acting as a part of that therapy. These she posts in amongst many other types of blog posts.

She is passionate about accessibility, both online and off, and dreams of helping businesses to improve their online accessibility once she has reached the age where she has got some qualifications in this industry - this may take her much longer than the average person because of her illnesses but she won’t allow that to stop her or dim her determination. She has always adored IT, and her passion for accessibility make this an ideal destination for her. She is currently on an IT Level One course as a virtual student (lockdowns and everything are, ironically, helping in this way), and although she has faced many setbacks, she truly feels that she was always destined for this.

Tiegan Elise’s family mean a great amount to her, and without them she would and could not be - not least, live the life that she does. They have much to do with her blog, from the behind scenes activities to featuring strongly on it, from being it’s and her greatest supporters to helping her and it go further.

She does write the majority of what’s featured (including this) - and when the rarity that she hasn’t written what is posted does happen a disclaimer is included in said post, and takes many of the pictures that feature on “The Zebra With Rainbow Stripes”, but they do significantly help with other things and these and she is very grateful and lucky for that.

Tiegan Elise is on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Pinterest, Bloglovin, and Wordpress under the same name; a name that she has for many reasons including having many different conditions with different awareness colours as well as EDS and rare conditions (famous for it’s zebra stripes), being a “rainbow baby”, and also being gay.

In February 2021, Meds, Mugs & Musings was born as Tiegan Elise realised that her musings needed a place to be published as well as her anecdotes which are published via The Zebra With Rainbow Stripes’ Instagram and Facebook. It is only on Instagram and will stay as so, as an small extension of The Zebra With Rainbow Stripes.